sigh.
You know how 9/11 truthers make protesters seem even crazier and more stupid than we are? This guy has just ratcheted it up a notch.

This is happening now, so I don’t know everything that is happening. But a gunman has taken hostages at the Discovery Channel. They believe it to be a guy James Jay Lee who has been arrested for protesting the place before, and he’s got a seriously wingnut list of demands. Some of the basic ideas make sense: advocating that human ingenuity ought to be turned to reversing environmental catastrophe, that the media has the opportunity and the responsibility to encourage a more responsible worldview. But it’s all couched in rhetoric about “filthy, filthy hobbitses” er… I mean, humans.

I wish I was baffled by how someone could possibly mix an anti-civilization worldview with an anti-immigrant one, as well, blaming immigrants for being “yet more human filth” or whatever. Clearly, those people were going to be people wherever they were.

This kind of militant misanthropy will probably only increase as civilization staggers forward, plowing down the last bits of the wild earth. And that sucks. The destruction of the wild sucks, and motherfuckers like the unabomber are in no way the solution.

from the list of demands that Mr. Lee had at a previous protest:

The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order.

Nice post, but implying a difference of degree (“ratcheted it up a notch”) not of kind between “9/11 truthers” and Lee is pretty goddamn obnoxious. Swap “9/11 truthers” for “anarchists” in that sentence, and see if it doesn’t read like the opening line from a mainstream liberal op-ed. I’m’a be charitable and presume your beef is not with 9/11 research per se but with certain aspects of the “truth movement” and inquire as to your own take on 9/11. ‘Tis the season, anyhow.

Eh, fair enough. But I would say that the 9/11 truthers I’ve run across are pretty much coming out of wingnut land, doing wacky and awkward stuff like denying the holocaust, blaming 9/11 on some jewish conspiracy, etc.

My own take? I don’t like al Qaeda or the US Government very much. I wouldn’t put it past either of those motherfuckers to pull something like that. I guess to me its sort of a moot point… the towers are gone, there’s a stupid fucking war that will never end, and religious fundamentalism and capitalism can both go to hell as far as I’m concerned.

this is not to say that I begrudge other people for trying to uncover what might have potentially happened, though.

Dude, sorry your encounters with truthers have been so wretched; always figured the “Jooz did it!” truthers were disinfo chimeras, but I guess, statistically, instantiations of darn near every stereotype must occasionally walk the earth. My first encounters with self-styled anarchists as a kid were likewise off-putting, and I had to read a bit to learn anarchy qua anarchy had nothing to do with spiky hair/attire, wanton destruction of stuff, music I disliked or treating folks like shit. I’d argue, along with, I suspect, most truthers, that 9-11 is not a moot point precisely because a specific, deceptive account of the event was used as the primary pretext for the “stupid fucking war that will never end”… but by all means take people to task for wingnut beliefs linked, however tenuously, to investigating 9-11. Drop by my place and call me out on some impulsive statement sometime, up with fun and freedom and take care.

Yeah, once again… fair enough: I certainly didn’t have a good impression of anti-globalization protesters the first time I ran into one, and two years later I became one.

I guess it just seems like there is almost no way to know who blew up the towers. And I guess conspiracy theory has never really been a priority for me: I figure there are real conspiracies, sure. But I already know who my enemies are.

Now, if we could expose the US as responsible for bringing down the WTC, I’m sure it would raise one hell of a ruckus and we’d see some heads roll. But I figure, if it was a conspiracy, those people are taking that shit to the grave.

It’s certainly very fucking difficult to know who blew up the towers, but individual researchers who’ve put years of time and energy into sorting through the available evidence in order to raise one hell of a ruckus and see some heads roll deserve better than to be offhandedly lumped in with human-hating hostage-taking scumbags, especially by one who loathes so fervently the War: Brought to you by 9-11! Also, in EVERY 9-11 narrative, including the official ones, it was a conspiracy – no ifs about it, aside from “if not numerous interlinked conspiracies”. I respect your cynicism and personal priorities, all I’m suggesting is that you afford 9-11 researchers and activists at least the respect of criticizing them individually rather than blanket-condemning them as crazy, stupid truthers – but, hey, it’s your blog, dude.